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Multcolib
Research
Picks:
Supreme
Court
memoirs
and
history

Annotation:The first Hispanic and third woman appointed to the United States Supreme Court, Justice Sonia Sotomayor has become an American icon. Her memoir, My Beloved World, details her journey from a Bronx housing project to the federal bench.

Annotation:Ronald Reagan appointed Sandra Day O’Connor to the Supreme Court in 1981 where she served until retiring in 2006. Her memoir details her childhood growing up on a remote ranch in eastern Arizona but does not go into any great detail about her life as a justice. However, what it does describe are the values her childhood imparted including an emphasis on competence and self-reliance.

Annotation:Stevens served on the Court longer than all but two other justices in American history. This may explain why he approached the topic as he did—a memoir of the Court through the five Chief Justices with which he worked over a very long career as a lawyer, law clerk, and, beginning in 1975, Associate Justice.

Annotation:Here are 37 of the most significant issues the Court has grappled with; from equal rights to privacy rights, from the limits of speech to the boundaries between church and state. Many of these cases read like thrillers, right down to their cliff-hanging endings.

Annotation:In the first Supreme Court history told primarily through eyewitness accounts from Court insiders, Clare Cushman provides readers with a behind-the-scenes look at the people, practices, and traditions that have shaped an American institution for more than two hundred years.

Description

As long as there has been a Supreme Court, Justices have been writing and publishing on a variety of topics, both on the law and their personal histories. Take a look at this list of resources detailing fascinating history of the Supreme Court and its Justices. From memoirs to history, to an introduction on how the court functions, there is a variety of writing on the highest court in the land. - Catherine M.